I have a few years under my belt voicing telephony platforms, and I can tell you there are some universal mistakes I see consistently. Most make sense if you simply think back to the last frustrating IVR you found yourself trying to navigate. The very mistakes which are frustrating you while trying to navigate through a phone tree are likely the ones you’re interested in avoiding in your own system. Here they are — in no particular order:

1. You Try To Make Your Company Sound Bigger

I have voiced intro messages that sometimes exceed 15-20 options, and most of them just reroute back to a single point of contact. You press accounts receivable, payable, tech support; they all end up at the same friendly CEO/accountant/chief bottle washer. I’m a one-person company, too, so I understand the necessity of wearing numerous hats. Just be aware that too many options point to an obvious attempt to sound bigger. You should always also keep in mind that people’s attention spans are short (and getting even more Tweet-sized), so if you’ve asked your customer to listen to all 15 options, chances are, they won’t remember what Option 1 was.

2. Your Most Critical Information is Buried at the Bottom

I recently voiced a system for a heart clinic with — see above — 12 different options to choose , and the very last option said: “If this is a medical emergency, please hang up, and dial 911.” I’d put that first and foremost. If you were having crushing chest pains and happened to dial your cardiologist’s office instead of 911, wouldn’t you want to be set straight sooner than later? That goes for customers who are having technical support issues with the Internet service you provide/support; let’s give those people with an emergent need a gateway to get to a person fast. Even if emergency situations don’t apply to your business, putting the most likely/most popular options first will circumvent a lot of caller frustration.

3. You Give Lengthy Directions to Your Office/Facility

If you must provide an option with driving directions—and I’m not entirely convinced that it’s a good or necessary thing, especially with the prevalence of GPS systems—keep them as short, succinct, and as pertinent as possible. Giving directions from every possible entry point is exhausting to listen to. If you had a prompt that said: We’re located in the Fisher Medical Park. Enter 5880 Fisher Street, Bethesda, Maryland into your GPS for detailed directions, the information would be available to those who need it and not burdensome to those who don’t.

4. You Over-Estimate People’s Attention Spans

They’re shorter than you think. All previous points I’ve made so far point to this basic fact: keep your IVR short. Front-load it with the most crucial info at the top and don’t inundate people with more information than they need—especially at the all-important point of entry. Many people will have an option that says, If you’d like to hear more about ABC Widgets and what makes us years ahead of our competition, press 4– which will go to an information line. Or, use an on-hold feature to inform and entertain while people are on hold, not in the front-end prompt.

5. You Want Me to Voice It at a Slow Pace

I suppose this is open to interpretation and can be more of a judgment call than anything else: if I’m voicing a pharmaceutical information line geared at seniors, I’ve been asked to take a more meticulous, exacting pace, taking into consideration hearing issues and reaction time. Fair enough. For practically any other industry—particularly those dealing with high-tech, industry-forward aspects and especially if there’s a high chance of repeat callers—let’s fly through your phone options at a fairly energetic pace. People’s time is valuable, and their frustration levels can be exacerbated by a plodding, leisurely pace.

6. You Haven’t Told Me How to Pronounce Your Staff’s Names

I’m pretty good at pronouncing place names (even those unfamiliar to me), and I’m pretty intuitive and a great guesser, but nowhere is there a greater chance of mispronouncing than with proper names, and it’s surprising how little direction I get with that. If you’re having someone voice a phone tree with names where there might be multiple pronunciations or there’s a name that is often botched, please provide a pronunciation guide.

7. You Go Overboard With Niceties

There isn’t a person who has been on hold in the last 20 years who hasn’t been thanked profusely for her patience, told her business is appreciated or her time is valuable. We hear it so often, in fact, that it frequently comes across as disingenuous. I try my hardest to sound as sincere and earnest as possible when voicing such platitudes; I implore the writers of IVR and on-hold systems to rethink the over-peppering of scripts with too many niceties. People get it. They know you’re busy giving someone else the same legendary service that you look forward to giving them, just keep the glad-handling to a minimum.

8. Your Company Name is Impossible to Pronounce

I encounter many firms that have unusual company names, which I have frequently gotten wrong until I was educated about the correct way to pronounce them. If I—a professional voice—get it wrong, how often does the general public mispronounce it? Why do you want a company name that has a very high possibility of not only being mispronounced, but also mistyped into a browser? Think very carefully when naming your company about how the name sounds and what the margin of error would be for mispronouncing it.

9.You Haven’t Established Who You Are – And You Haven’t Communicated That To Me

It’s important to know for yourself what kind of company you are, what image you’re projecting, and who you’re targeting. It’s also really crucial to let your voice talent in on that information. If your position in your market is somewhat of a “maverick,” that’s helpful for me to know to establish the right mood and feel. If your customer base is conservative, straightforward, and all-business, then I won’t approach it in a fun, playful, conversational tone. Most voice talents are versatile enough to make those adjustments, with the right direction.

10. You Haven’t Read Your Copy Out Loud

Many glitches in awkward wording don’t make themselves evident when you’re simply scanning them visually. It’s really important to read your IVR script out loud to catch any odd phrasing and redundancies.

A smooth, easy-to-use phone tree is the goal of anyone who designs IVR systems. By avoiding these pitfalls, you’re that much closer to as stress-free an experience as possible for your callers.

Allison Smith is a professional telephone voice, having voiced platforms for Verizon, Qwest, Cingular, Bell Canada, Vonage, Twitterfone, Hawaiian Telcom, and the Asterisk Open-Source PBX. Her Web site is www.theivrvoice.com.

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One Response

The KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle works for designing IVR systems. It seems that all too often IVR designers skip the research and testing phases. Doing some research on who calls your company and why or what do people think about your current IVR should give anyone some starting points. Then at least read your copy aloud or preferably test it with a group of customers.